Here are 100 books that Ezra's Ghosts fans have personally recommended if you like
Ezra's Ghosts.
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My journey into Asian story began with Black Cranes, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn. I have two stories in that book, but it is more than another anthology. The stories were specifically about women of horror and Asian descent- black cranes. I’ve gone on to write and publish my own stand-alone works from the Asian perspective, and our sisterhood gets stronger with every new book. We aren’t alone in appreciating representation. The books we’ve written since Black Cranes have an impressive collection of Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and all sorts of other awards.
Another essayist from my book, Ai Jiang, writes a heartbreaking story. I think a lot of us trapped in debt can feel in our core. Ai’s book captures the essence of human connection in a world increasingly dominated by technological advancement and capitalist pursuits.
Despite the sci-fi story, Ai focuses on the human, everyday interactions that truly define our collective experience. She emphasizes the value of the moments we share with those closest to us—our families, friends, and neighbors. Often overlooked in the hustle of getting ahead, these interactions keep a community alive.
A wonderful author and person, her story digs deep into all the feels.
"Moving, brilliant, and certified 100% human." -Samit Basu, author of Turbulence
If you have the opportunity to give up humanity for efficiency, mechanical invincibility, and to surpass human limitations. . . would you?
Ai is a cyborg, under the guise of an AI writing program, who struggles to keep up with the never-blinking city of Emit as it threatens to leave all those like her behind.
My journey into Asian story began with Black Cranes, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn. I have two stories in that book, but it is more than another anthology. The stories were specifically about women of horror and Asian descent- black cranes. I’ve gone on to write and publish my own stand-alone works from the Asian perspective, and our sisterhood gets stronger with every new book. We aren’t alone in appreciating representation. The books we’ve written since Black Cranes have an impressive collection of Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and all sorts of other awards.
K.P. Kulski is one of the essayists in my book and an enthusiastic supporter of Asian women’s voices, and she brings it all out in this powerful novel. Set in a mysterious Joseon-era palace and told from the pov of three generations of women, the story's strength is its blend of cultural heritage and feminist themes.
Kristi draws inspiration for this book from the Korean folk tale A Tiger’s Whisker. I greatly respect KP Kulski for daring to use menstruation as an integral part of the plot. This book is compelling for those interested in a unique blend of historical setting, folklore, and a poignant examination of female identity—all three are a win for me.
"As sharp as broken pottery and as delicate as a peony petal, House of Pungsu is the story my spirit hungered for. K.P. Kulski shifts rice paper doors to reveal the darkest truth."-Lee Murray, USA Today bestselling author and four-time Bram Stoker Award(R) winner.
No one knows what's beyond the walls of the Joseon-era palace that never seems to decay, a sprawling complex where daughter, mother, and grandmother are the only inhabitants. Why is her bed-bound grandmother locked in her room each night, and what exactly is behind the locked doors of the palace pavilions and halls? When daughter unexpectedly…
My journey into Asian story began with Black Cranes, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn. I have two stories in that book, but it is more than another anthology. The stories were specifically about women of horror and Asian descent- black cranes. I’ve gone on to write and publish my own stand-alone works from the Asian perspective, and our sisterhood gets stronger with every new book. We aren’t alone in appreciating representation. The books we’ve written since Black Cranes have an impressive collection of Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and all sorts of other awards.
Don’t let the title put you off! It’s a play on the pronunciation of an island in the Philipines called Siquijor (sounds like “seek ye whore”), but the titular story is still pretty titillating.
Yvette Tan is another of the essayists in my book. Her writing vividly portrays Filipino culture, replete with its myths and legends and drenched in the complexities of human emotion. I appreciate that Tan didn’t just make another horror collection; it's a lens through which the rich tapestry of Filipino life, with its blend of the mundane and the magical, is explored.
The collection is a good pick for those who enjoy horror with a cultural twist. This book gives a panoramic and multifaceted experience of Filipino life with which I was unfamiliar.
My journey into Asian story began with Black Cranes, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn. I have two stories in that book, but it is more than another anthology. The stories were specifically about women of horror and Asian descent- black cranes. I’ve gone on to write and publish my own stand-alone works from the Asian perspective, and our sisterhood gets stronger with every new book. We aren’t alone in appreciating representation. The books we’ve written since Black Cranes have an impressive collection of Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and all sorts of other awards.
I have read this book by Alma Katsu three times now. About the often-forgotten period in US history where American citizens of Japanese and Okinawan blood were locked up in internment camps, Alma does a fabulous job of telling the story without picking sides.
From an Asian-mixed family myself, I could see aspects of my relationship with my mother mixed in the story. A brilliant blend of historical events and elements of Japanese folklore, Alma’s skillful storytelling not only entertains but also educates, shedding light on a dark period in American history when the humanity of certain groups was unjustly questioned because of their race.
This book is more than just a dark story; it explores identity, demonization, and the human spirit's resilience.
The acclaimed author of the celebrated literary horror novels The Hunger and The Deep turns her psychological and supernatural eye on the horrors of the Japanese American internment camps in World War II.
1944: As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest.…
I’m a writer/artist inspired by a lifetime of reading graphic novels. A visual artist at heart with a BFA in Industrial Design I have worked over a decade in conceptual thinking for research and development in the manufacturing sector. I love the experimentation that breaks the boring norms of industry standards. I wanted to use my talent, experience, and passion to create a sci-fi graphic novel, Bear Serum, and break the medium norms. I wrote and drew it to satiate my own wild ideas in the sci-fi category to push the medium further.
I picked this book up on a whim, I’m glad I did. It was a pleasant surprise with no expectations. A simple, easy-to-read story with art guiding you frame by frame from artist Ann Xu. The smooth art guides you through the effortless story. It shines a light from a different perspective of life. It is soft, warm, and enlightening as we question death around the corner (especially close for the elderly woman in this story who literally vacuums up death). If you are looking for something different from a harsh dystopian/superhero graphic novel, pick up Shadow Life.
I suggest that you read this one on a Sunday morning.
When Kumiko's well-meaning adult daughters place her in an assisted living home the seventy-six-year-old widow gives it a try, but it's not where she wants to be. She goes on the lam and finds a cosy bachelor apartment, keeping the location secret even while communicating online with her eldest daughter. Kumiko revels in the small, daily pleasures: decorating as she pleases, eating what she wants, and swimming in the community pool. But something has followed her from her former residence - Death's shadow.
Kumiko's sweet life is shattered when Death's shadow swoops in to collect her. With her quick mind…
I am an award-winning and USA Today bestselling South African author, social anthropologist, and transformational life coach. Human transformation and the question of human social nature are key themes in all of my writing, which explores the experiences of people on the margins or with a background of overlapping cultures. I am a book dragon who loves reading adventures in almost every genre and that broad scope of my reading explorations has wormed its way into my writing style which, though broadly defined as fantasy, encompasses elements from other styles in a rich and ‘aromatic’ blend.
This charming contemporary romance with a touch of magical realism totally hit the spot. It’s all about Grace’s transformation from an overworked, underpaid, unappreciated individual into a person who achieves her potential and flourishes. It’s one of those beautiful allegorical tales about finding your true self so you can become who you were meant to be. Totally uplifting and left me with all the warm and fuzzies.
Grace leads a fairy-tale-free existence in the rainy Seattle, struggling to provide for her frail mother and younger sister. But when a mysterious package arrives from her eccentric aunt, she is suddenly thrown into a whirlpool of unusual events.
Named the next "carrier of the gifts", she has only one week to sort through her supernatural inheritance or lose it all.
But in this story crystal slippers don't fit, "fairy godmothers" don't show up, and prince might not be so easy to charm.
As Grace blunders through unpredictable magic that challenges…
As a queer reader and writer of horror, I have little interest in anything that could be deemed “positive representation.” Horror is most compelling when it gets honest and ugly about the bad, selfish, cruel, or simply unwise choices people make when they’re truly scared–and that includes queer people. I love queer stories that aren’t primarily romantic or neatly resolved. I like messy groups of friends, toxic emotional entanglements, and family dynamics that don’t fit in a Hallmark card. These days there are lots of stories in other genres about queer people becoming their best selves, but horror also has space for us at our worst.
It’s rare to find a book that combines my two favorite horror subgenres–queer horror and parenting horror–but this book does that and more. With four different protagonists who are all, in one way or another, queer, this bizarre family saga delves into the surreality of grief and the questionable choices people make to protect themselves and the ones they love.
The true queerness of this novel goes beyond its characters’ various same-sex attractions and relationships; at its heart, it’s a queer story because it shows how we build families out of the rubble that’s left when the lives we expected to lead fall apart.
A "genuinely scary" horror debut written in "prose so beautiful you won't want to rush" about a boy who transforms into a monster, a monster who tries to be a man, and the people who love him in every form he takes (Ana Reyes)
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago's lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family's decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio…
I’ve always enjoyed short story collections. Starting with Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, I became a fan of the short form. And as a burgeoning writer, writing short stories was the best way for me to learn the craft of storytelling. While I started out writing supernatural horror, I gradually found myself combining horror, fantasy, and science fiction with dark comedy and social satire, creating a blend of genres. Several of the short story collections I recommend here were instrumental in my evolution as a short story writer and inspired a number of the stories in my latest collection, Lost Creatures.
I love reading novels and stories that make me wish I’d written them, and this collection by Kelly Link made me wish that time and time again. This book also introduced me to the concept of fabulism, a form of magical realism where elements of the fantastic occur in everyday settings, which is something I find compelling both as a reader and as a writer. Link combines humor, fantasy, magical realism, and more than a touch of horror to create a collection of stories that is unique, weird, and wonderful.
Fantastic, fantastical and utterly incomparable, Kelly Link's new collection explores everything from the essence of ghosts to the nature of love. And hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the pyramids . . .
With each story she weaves, Link takes readers deep into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed universe. Strange, dark and wry, Get in Trouble reveals Kelly Link at the height of her creative powers and stretches the boundaries of what fiction can do.
I want to write about the magic of the everyday and often this is seen in the slippages between worlds like the worlds of the living and the dead. Ghosts and spirits feature heavily in my work and fascinate me as a reader too. This is not in the realm of fantasy to me, ghosts are real and actual.
This story is about Benny a teenager who can hear objects speaking and his mother, who is a compulsive hoarder.
Benny finds a group of people in a hidden wing of the local library which introduces him to a new world where he is accepted. He meets Aleph a drug user who leaves lines of poetry on paper in the books of the library and Slavoj a homeless drunk man who spouts much philosophy from his wheelchair. Ozeki makes the reality fantastic, the work is grounded in ordinary details.
The book is a beautiful portrait of a mix of characters you ordinarily would ignore and makes magic of the everyday. It's this everyday magic that I also wish to capture in my own fiction.
"No one writes like Ruth Ozeki-a triumph." -Matt Haig, New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library
"Inventive, vivid, and propelled by a sense of wonder." -TIME
"If you've lost your way with fiction over the last year or two, let The Book of Form and Emptiness light your way home." -David Mitchell, Booker Prize-finalist author of Cloud Atlas
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction
A boy who hears the voices of objects all around him; a mother drowning in her possessions; and a Book that might hold the secret to saving them both-the brilliantly inventive new novel…
The stars aligned to ignite my passion for magic-realism romance after a few things had happened. 1) I got heavily into the idea of the multiverse and alternate realities in high school, having been inspired by my physics teacher. 2) I read and fell in love with The Time Traveler’s Wife (see list!). 3) I binge-watched the incredible sci-fi show Fringe, which deals with parallel universes and time jumps. 4) I decided to write my first multiverse romance, inspired by all the above factors and more besides. Since then, I’ve focused most of my reading on romantic novels, with those that share a magic realism twist being auto-reads—of course!
Cesca Major's book is my pick in the spate of recent time-loop novels that feature romance. The Groundhog Day concept, where the protagonist repeats the same day over and over to (hopefully) get it right, is fertile ground for a great romance. Who hasn’t wished they could get a do-over with a loved one or potential partner?
Our protagonist, Emma, keeps reliving the day her husband, Dan, died after being hit by a car after a marital fight. I love Emma’s agony in trying all the possibilities to avoid Dan’s death, to the extent of virtually driving her insane. The lack of consequences, given she always wakes up on the Monday morning, is another thing that pushes her to increasing extremes.
This is not a typical romance, but the focus on saving her marriage no matter what makes this book a perfect magic-realism romantic novel. I also adore the London…
A heartwarming and emotionally poignant time-loop novel about a stressed woman who must relive the same day over and over, keeping her family and work life from imploding as she attempts to spare her husband from an unfortunate fate.
It is an ordinary Monday and harried London literary agent Emma is flying out of the door as usual. Preoccupied with work and her ever growing to-do list, she fails to notice her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. Even the dog seems…
